Happily Ever After
by warmfuzzies
Summary: [One-Shot] It was supposed to end like in all the great stories, movies and fairytales. "Happily Ever After". But life isn’t like that. Life doesn’t always end that way.


**A/N:** I couldn't get into my old account – _nihility_. So, I had to make a new rushed one. Moving on. . .

This may seem a tad. . .bleak. Or maybe that's just me. The sentences have a tendency to be fragment sentences. I like to think they add a little somethin' somethin' to the story. Yah, right. I tried to check it over but I wrote this really late and so there might be that occasional error. Sorry in advance. Anyways, have fun reading.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Inuyasha. Don't sue. I wouldn't understand the paperwork anyways.

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It was supposed to end like in all the great stories, movies and fairytales.

Happily Ever After.

But life isn't like that. Life doesn't always end that way.

Reality is a cold hard thing to wake up to. I don't remember when I woke up from my dreamland perception of the world.

It's funny, after all the trials, slayings and battles I'd seen I was still tinged with innocence.

I was such a naïve, ignorant girl.

I thought that my story would end happily. In my heart of hearts it had been what I had believed- what I always think I will believe. Without the hope in my heart that things will turn alright in the end I doubt I would have been able to stand going through so much.

I've seen enough bloodshed for a million lifetimes and I've suffered heartache from the young tender age of fifteen.

My story was supposed to end happily ever after. There was no other recompense for being thrust into such an odd unbelievable story.

A fifteen year old girl, falling down a well to another place and time. Befriending a monk, slayer, and a fox demon while falling in love with a dog demon who was in love with a hateful priestess. Battling against evil itself and his minions with a bow & arrow in a school uniform. Risking life and limb for the fragments of a jewel no larger than the palm of my hand.

I would not have accepted anything less than a good ending.

I suppose I was too blinded by the real reality of what I had been forced into. When all was said, fought and done, I came up with the short straw.

The battle was finished. The Jewel shards were gathered. All was well and repaired.

I was thrown back through the well, feeling five hundred years flow pass me in a pounding quick current.

Then I was back. On the other side. Back at the shrine.

I can still feel the disbelief I had felt. I can still feel the cold hardness of the wood well that I launched myself into again and again. I can feel my feet pounding into the dirt, over and over until my legs were numb.

It was over. Just like that. Not even a goodbye.

I didn't sleep, eat or speak for days. My family and friends alike were extremely worried about me. I didn't care.

I sat under the Goshinboku tree as the hours and days melded into one long stream that past me by.

It was the closest I felt to Inuyasha and my friends.

The well was just an object. A time traveling device. The tree though was. . . something differently entirely. It was alive since Inuyasha's time, maybe even longer than that. It was a living connection to the past. I'd brush my hands against the smooth worn bark, ignoring the way my heart constricted as my finger ran over the only blemish in the tree. A scar, carved deep, like an arrow had pierced through once upon a time.

I couldn't get back. I couldn't get back to the place I finally understood I belonged.

I was displaced in a world and time I was born in but didn't belong in. I was home but it wasn't where my heart was.

I cursed myself. I reviewed every event from the very beginning, playing it all like a worn out tape.

Stop. Pause. Rewind. Forward. Play again.

What if I had done things differently? Why did I never tell Inuyasha I loved him? Now…he'd never know. Why did I never talk to Sango more? Or become better friends with Miroku? A lot of the time I neglected Shippou and now I'd never see his sweet face either. I never got to straighten things out with Kouga, or talk to Kaede enough.

My regrets spilled over. To never see my friends again, or go back to the Feudal Era. . . .

True, it was dangerous there but to be separated was far worse than death.

I would laugh for a long time sometimes, with no reason as to why. Denial gnawed at me as I cried countless tears in my heart. I think I was going crazy.

I don't know what snapped me out of my depression. But I was a happy-go-lucky girl, nothing kept me down for long no matter how much I wanted to.

My family knew not to bring up the subject of the well, or how it connected what is and what had been.

I became normal Kagome Higuarshi again.

Well, as normal as I could pretend to be.

A few of my smiles were sincere, but a lot of the time I had a façade on. It was a blessing yet a curse that no one noticed. Not even my family. I became good at hiding my emotions.

Sometimes I drifted off. I was startled back to reality when a friend shook me or waved a hand in my face. They always wondered where I went when that far away look came into my eyes.

I'd never tell.

I got top honors since school became my only worry. It was a trivial worry to what I had been through. I became the champion of my archery team and graduated to a good university.

The years passed. It almost seemed they passed as quickly as the current of time that whooshed pass me when I fell down the well.

I still remember that sensation. That moment where a feeling of weightlessness would make my stomach take an apprehensive turn. Suspended between time and suddenly dropping down again, like stone in water.

I grew up, as all must do I supposed.

I became a history teacher. Irony makes frequent appearances in my life.

Would it surprise you I married Houjo? I came to become very fond of him, but truth be told, I never loved the poor man. But, he was sweet and kind, pursuing me like a sad little puppy after a bone. I finally agreed to be his wife and was able to live contently. At least, that's what I told myself. He was very happy though. I'm glad one of us was.

I was able to find real joy though, in my children. I had a daughter and two sons.

I named them Sango, Miroku and Shippou. Irony again.

I never did utter Inuyasha's name after the day I was thrown back into time to never return. Its place was in my heart, among the broken pieces.

Souta grew up and moved to America. Grandfather grew to live very long, but became even more long winded. He died when I was thirty two. Mama died ten years ago.

I am sixty five now. Fifty years after I first went to the Feudal Era. The same number of years Inuyasha had been pinned to the tree before I came along.

Sometimes I was convinced it was all a long dream that I had imagined.

But my heart knew it was not.

I lived in the shrine now with Houjo. It was the only place I could feel a semblance of belonging. My children are all grown up now, married and have their own lives.

So that is my life. Would it not seem uncomely boring after the adventures I had faced? Yes, it would.

There is sometimes a restlessness in me, the need to feel the adrenaline rush one gets plunging into danger.

But I am far too old for that.

The old well house is even older. The walls are worn, the stairs near ruin.

It is cold in here, drafts seep in through the walls that chill me to the bone.

Or is that the memory? The bittersweet memories that still fill me with a cold sadness. I have lived in the past too long.

I press my hand against the well. It is still sturdy, looking no different from when I had first dived in fifteen years ago. As it should be.

The well's rim is cold, firm and hard.

I look into the depths. It gives nothing away except an empty blackness.

I find myself whispering a name I had not uttered for ages.

"Inuyasha. . ."

I hear my voice, sad and filled with regret. The name feels foreign yet familiar as it rolls off my tongue.

The blackness of the well seems to grow.

For a second, I fancy myself young again. I want to jump in. Maybe…just maybe.

I see myself placing both hands on the rim, coiling myself up to jump in. Time will whoosh by me, thrusting me back into Inuyasha's arms.

But then I hear Hojo calling. He is worried.

I am back again, back to reality.

I am an old woman, standing shivering in an old dark well house that holds memories of a lifetime ago.

Taking a breath, I whisper into the darkness.

"Sayo. . .sayonara."

I turn away.

I can almost here the decisive slam of a book somewhere.

I have finally closed that chapter of my story.

I walk out the door to Houjo's frenzied concern.

I allow myself to be steered back into the house.

So this was my ending.

My Happily Ever After.

No…this was my reality.

This was my life.

I had to accept it.

It goes on.

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**A/N**: How's that for an ending? P Well, I tried. Hehe. Please help me further improve my writing but comments/criticism. They would be much appreciated. Ja! 


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